Ms Amy Kelly:

I wish to highlight several points. We can pick out one or two of the hard cases but there are also many hard cases on our front. I was vice president for welfare for two years in Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology Students Union and I saw the hard cases on a daily basis. They were common; it was not a question of dealing with one every couple of months. When asked about basic heating in the house, students were told it was a privilege for them to have heating. These are the issues that students in particular come up against when looking for rental accommodation.

If students have a concern during their tenancy, they are afraid to make a complaint because of fear of eviction and something else happening during their tenancy. This is particularly the case for digs-style accommodation, which is what we are before the committee to speak on today. Many students do not want to open their mouths because of fear of what may happen if an issue arises. Such accommodation is what we are relying on during the academic year. We are in June and many leaving certificate students are doing the leaving certificate. They are not thinking about accommodation, but others have been thinking about it since they started the process of choosing a college course. This is because the media has been reporting, rightly, that most purpose-built student accommodation is 80% or 90% booked out with a small percentage reserved for incoming first-year students. That is a concerning statistic. There is a heavy reliance on digs.

The issue is not one of changing legislation but of introducing legislation for digs-style accommodation because there is currently no protection for the tenant. The law is completely in favour of landlords. The terms and conditions of a tenancy in digs-style accommodation is at the landlord's discretion. I will offer some examples from my time. We think of digs-style accommodation as being close by or across the road from the campus at which the student is studying. During my time in Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology we had students based in the Dublin Road campus or the Cluain Mhuire campus who were living in accommodation as far away as Claregalway or Athenry. They had to rely on poor public transportation because they were coming from other parts of the country. That was as close as they could get to their campus.

There are issues with facilities. Usually in digs-style accommodation facilities are completely at the discretion of the landlord. Students may not even be able to use the kettle in the house. They may only have the facility of the bedroom and many are not allowed to have even one visitor to the property. It is solely a matter of sleeping in the accommodation and then leaving. Some students may be told they can have food. I have met students who were very upset because the food they were being provided with was substandard, for example, chicken nuggets and chips and the cheapest of cheap food. If these students have a disagreement with their landlord which they want to resolve, they have nowhere to go to resolve it, even if they have contracts or a written agreement.

August is the busiest time for incoming students. During my final summer in GMIT students union people who were willing to rent out digs-style accommodation were coming to our reception desk. A student would come at the same time and we would introduce the parties there and then. The accommodation was not even getting to the stage of being advertised publicly. That is how much of a crisis we were in. We were getting people in at the same time and meeting them there and then, such was the demand.

Students are not being taken seriously in the rental market, especially with regard to tenants' rights. There are cases in which landlords are not listening to students. As officers throughout the country, we are fighting on behalf of students with Threshold. I was in frequent contact with Threshold during my time. The charity was very helpful with advice. The situation for students is not right and needs to change, in particular with regard to digs-style accommodation. We need to fix this problem.